December 21, Sarasota, Florida, 3000 block of Clark Avenue. Just before 5:00p.m.

Sometimes if you pause for a minute you become a captive audience in a world of strangers. The pausing gives someone else a chance to speak.

So there I was sitting outside on a bench on which was painted an advertisement I didn’t care to notice, waiting for my daughter Olivia. She had run into a convenience store to buy a cool drink.

I saw a petite, olive-skinned woman in her sixties with a crimson red scarf look at me and pause as she got into her white Ford Taurus. Was she looking at me or at someone in the window of the store behind me? It seemed like she wanted to say something, so I chose to help her by looking right back at her and giving her my full attention.

“Do you see the parrots over there between the trees?” she asked me. She pointed far away. It was an unusual remark from a stranger and it took me a minute to see what she was talking about. Then, I saw some distinct shapes on the telephone wires. At first they looked like the common birds I see back home in Ohio, but on closer inspection, and to my amazement, I saw by their hookbills that they were indeed parrots. There were several groups of them, perched side by side as close as possible to each other.

“Yes, I see them,” I said. Cars and trucks drove under them in rush hour oblivion.

“They mate for life,” she said.

How romantic, I thought.

“If one dies, it’s just terrible,” she went on. “The other will kill them self, by pulling their feathers out. I’m from Brazil, I know a lot about parrots.”

“That’s so sad,” I said, picturing a lone parrot with just a few feathers left on its wing.

“It’s beautiful up there, yes?” she asked me.

“Yes,” I said.

She smiled at me, got in to her car, quietly closed the door and started her engine.

I stared at the parrots . . . wild, in love on the telephone wire. I wouldn’t have noticed them if she hadn’t pointed them out.

One of the most common locations for finding a stranger is the seat next to you. It’s the seat that was unoccupied a few minutes ago, but now holds someone that you don’t know, someone you’ve never seen. This person could possibly change the entire course of your life, or just make for an enjoyable evening—or perhaps a nerve-racking one.

Tonight my daughter, Olivia, and I are the strangers ready to find good empty seats at the open -air amphitheater at Chautauqua Institution, a mecca of cultural and educational opportunities in Chautauqua, New York. We’re looking for not only the right viewing location for the Jennifer Nettles concert we’re attending, but also neighbors we can live with for a while.

The seats are first-come, first-served benches (think church pews). I know from experience that, at a popular event like this, we’ll most likely be squeezed next to whomever is seated next to us.

I spot a young woman who’s what I’d call a “cool-looking person” seated next to a guy that looks friendly and “cool” as well. She has hip green glasses, lots of stylish jewelry and a friendly smile. “Are these seats free?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says cheerfully as the two of them scoot over. Maybe she’s relieved that friendly-looking people like us will be their seat-mates. I ask her if she’s seen Jennifer Nettles before. She says she has, and adds, “She’s great!” Then she tells Olivia that she likes her bracelet.

After Olivia thanks her, she says, “Don’t just think it, it’s good to say something nice to someone if that’s what you’re thinking. That’s what I believe.”

I like her philosophy. I tell her that my daughter, who goes by the stage name Olivia Frances (www.oliviafrancesmusic.com), is a musician and song-writer. And then I pause.

“You should brag on her,” she says, much to my relief.

I take my iPhone out and press iTunes to show the two of them a song from Olivia’s album, “Back to Happiness.” She holds the phone up to her ear and he leans in close. They smile and listen to the whole song, which I didn’t expect them to do—but I love them for it.

When the music starts she and Olivia begin dancing in their seats, waving their arms back and forth in sync with each other. It’s beautiful to watch, like two old friends who have practiced these dance moves many times before. The “cool” guy and I sit on either side of them clapping along with the audience in rhythm.

When it’s time to go, we finally introduce ourselves to each other. “Nice meeting you, Dawn and Todd,” I say.

“Good luck with your music, Olivia,” Dawn says, and there are smiles all around from the four of us. A concert is so much more enjoyable when you share the music and a bench with people whose company you enjoy—like these people in the seats next to us to whom we were strangers just a few short hours ago.

There are usually no surprises at the gas pump, except for the price tag. But this time was different. I drove up, stopped my car and was looking my phone when all of a sudden, a man was standing too close to my open car window, displaying a product in a can.

“Would you like to try this product?” he asked. He was a young sandy-haired man, with a sweaty forehead. “This will shine up your tires. It’s unbelievable how good they’ll look…”

“No, thank you” I said to him. Annoyed.

“Well, let me just show you…” he said in a hyper, pushy way, holding the can even closer for me to see.

I looked him right in the eye. “No means no,” I said and paused.

I’m lovin’ the long pause. I didn’t utter another word. He was surprised, like he’d been rejected before, but not quite that way, and he just stood there for a moment processing it before he turned away.

Well, I thought to myself. He’s got a tough job; it’s a job full of rejection day after day. I wonder what his daily sales quota is, but I’m not going to help him reach it.

A silver Toyota Camry pulled up at the pump across from me and I saw him run over to it.

A woman in her thirties with Farrah Fawcett hair climbed out. He began explaining the tire product to her. I heard her giggle—that’s right, giggle—and then I saw her flirting with him. “You can try it on my tires,” I heard her say. She twirled a strand of her hair and watched him spray her tires.

Different strokes for different folks, I thought. Maybe his sales quota will be just fine today.